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Ashleigh Carter and Bill Eye of Denver’s Bierstadt Lagerhaus are quintessential brewers’ brewers, and their singular focus on lagers along with their exacting and methodical approach to traditional techniques has earned them deep respect from their peers. In this episode of the podcast, they discuss everything from the Weyermann base malt they use in their pale lagers, to the importance of decoction mashing, the value of technique over recipe, their novel glassware and pricing strategies, broader trends in the brewing industry, the boom and bust cycle, and why beer should not be the focus of the conversation.
“It’s not one thing one hundred percent better, it’s a hundred things one percent better,” says Ashleigh Carter. “There’s not one thing I can put my finger on in our brewhouse that we do, but it’s the commitment to doing every single one of those things every single time.”
“You have to ask yourself why you got into this business in the first place,” says Bill Eye. “Was it because you had something to show people? Some part of you that you wanted to express in beer? Because honestly, if you just got into this to chase trends and make some money, I wish you’d go make pencils. I wish you’d go do something else to make your money. This is what I love to do, and the people I respect—they’re all in. We’re all in. We are doing this because it’s the only thing we wanted to do. There is no plan B.”